The Klingon's Mate
by Izzy
Summary: A retelling of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House for the 24th century, set in a universe where Jadzia lived.
1. Starbase 502

As far as Jadzia Dax was concerned, things were finally looking up. She hadn't been this pleased with her circumstances since the Dominion War had ended. For the first time in years, a change had come in which she wasn't losing anyone. In fact, she was gaining people back.

She'd never really let Worf know that she hadn't been too happy on Qo'onos. He might not have even realized how much she'd been constantly under the eye of Sirella, who had never really taken to her. In an effort to please her, she'd, well, she'd let the symbiont take over. Curzon knew how to keep Klingon matriarchs satisfied. He knew how to infuriate them too, but there Jadzia had ignored the majority of temptations, though some of them had been very strong.

This was a dangerous thing, flirting with the symbiont in that manner, though she'd been doing it even before she met Worf. Marrying him had sealed her fate as walking that line for the rest of her life.

Standing in the middle of their quarters on Starbase 502, she was also becoming aware of how much she had even missed Starfleet decor. She couldn't believe she'd ever called it sterile. Suddenly the colors were warm and welcoming, and bright lights were the most underrated thing in the galaxy.

Worf was off talking with Nerys. Poor Nerys had truly suffered in the years since the war, her universe wrecked by a scandal that probably wasn't even her fault. But hopefully now she'd get back into Starfleet, and put the last few years behind her. Turink was asleep in his bedroom, having worn himself out with excitement. It was amazing to think he hadn't been off Qo'nos since he'd been less than a month old. Jadzia would teach him properly about the Starfleet half of his heritage, the was she hadn't been able to around Sirella, and get him to stop being ashamed that he was only half-Klingon.

When she heard the door to their new quarters chime, she assumed it was Worf. Putting on her brightest smile, she sung out, "Come in," and sashayed to the front of the quarters to greet him with a big kiss. But when the doors opened, instead of her husband, they admitted a figure she'd still never thought she'd see again.

"Odo?" It was the same unfeatured face and ears, the same blue eyes, the same clay-blonde hair. Though he no longer wore a Bajoran security uniform, having replaced it with a nondescript brownish jumpsuit.

"Hello, Commander Dax. Can I come in?"

"Only if you call me Jadzia," she said, but she stepped aside and let him in.

He stood there awkwardly, looking at a chair for a moment but seemingly deciding to stand. "So," he said.

"So," she replied. "What's been up with you for the past few years?"

"Well, you must know part of it; the behavior of the Founders after the war is no secret."

"No," Jadzia agreed. There had been very little communication between the Federation and Dominion for a year or so after the war. Then there had been an attempt to establish proper diplomatic relations, which had gone very badly, and ended four years ago with a rogue agent of the Dominion deciding to collapse the wormhole. From what anyone could tell, he'd used the earlier developed method which didn't harm the wormhole aliens/Prophets, and certainly the orbs hadn't gone black, but it had been a devastating blow for the Bajorans, and it had ultimately soured their relations with the Federation. This whole story, of course, resulted in the question of not only why Odo was here now, but also how he'd even gotten back to the Alpha Quadrant.

"Shortly after the wormhole was collapsed," said Odo, "the other Founders kicked me out. Made me persona non grata throughout most of the quadrant. The Alpha Quadrant was the only place I could think to go to, the only place I knew anything about. When I got out of Dominion space I took a job as a security officer on a ship headed in the general direction of the quadrant. When that ship started traveling in another direction I switched ships. I was far enough away that I didn't think I could get back within any of your lifetimes, so I was in no hurry.

About a year ago I got lucky; I found a ship company with transwarp abilities. But even then I couldn't find any ships that would take me anywhere near Federation space. I finally started saving up my pay to buy a coil from them. When I had enough for a big coil and a small ship, and to pay someone to put them together, I got myself to Federation space. That was about two months ago."

"Two months? And why didn't you contact any of us?!"

In response Odo put his fingers to his lips. "Before I could," he said gravely, "Starfleet Command contacted me. I don't know how they knew I'd returned, and I'm not sure I want to. And now they've left with the hint that I can join Starfleet itself if I want; I follow all the proper procedures and turn in all the proper paperwork and my acceptance is made certain. The paperwork would include a letter of recommendation from a commanding officer, of course..."

"Worf can do that," said Jadzia. "Ambassadors have that ability, and he still has the title for another month. He's already doing it for..." But then she drifted off.

"Kira," Odo finished for her. His voice was nearly choked to death with pain. "I heard about what happened. I came here to see her. But now I...I can't face her, Jadzia."

"You don't have to right away," she assured him. "You can wait at least a couple of days. She's going to be busy anyway, putting the last pieces of her own application together. It might even be smarter to talk to her after it's all sent; she'll be in a much better mood. And if the two of you join Starfleet together..."

"You're assuming I want to join, Jadzia," he interrupted her with a dark smile. "I might, actually. But I haven't told you the second half of the story yet."

"Ah yes," said Jadzia. "Starfleet Command."

"When I reached Deep Space 11, my transwarp coil was all but done for, and I needed multiple repairs, and was having trouble getting them. When a representative from Starfleet Command offered me and my ship passage back to Earth and a free refit, I saw more reason to accept than to decline it. Then they trapped me behind forcefields in one of their smaller buildings and grilled me. I was very nice to them, actually, answered all their questions and made no attempt to escape, and when I probably could have gotten away. Not that they appreciated it. Than they apologized, as if that was supposed to make it all better, and gave me the hint about joining Starfleet."

It sounded like there might be more to their treatment of him, but that he didn't want to talk about it. Jadzia didn't press. "You know," she mused, "ten years ago I wouldn't have believed it of them." But so much had happened since then to disillusion her.

First of all there was what had happened to Nerys, which Starfleet was possibly as least partly responsible for; Nerys was being generous presuming them innocent until proven guilty. Also she'd seen things, things she had the feeling she wasn't supposed to had seen, in her role as ambassador's wife. And even before all that, there had been that strange conversation she'd had with Julian, just before she and Worf had decided to have Turink, where he hinted he'd just found out something, something Garak had told him, maybe, that had altered his view of the Federation considerably. And then she'd remembered how he'd gone to that medical conference on Risa, with that business where his ship had been delayed and apparently he'd had to give his paper late, and come back looking shaken and upset, not at all like a man who'd just been to a resort world.

But thinking about Julian was always a complicated business for her these days. He'd done five operations on her until she and Worf were finally able to conceive, during which it felt like they'd simultaneously grown closer and further apart. She supposed he'd had some regrets; it was the unspoken elephant in the room that had she not met Worf, she probably would have ended up with him. And so it had remained between them ever since.

"You'd better hide, actually," she remarked to Odo. "Worf will be back any minute and more likely than not he'll bring Nerys with him."

As if on cue they heard the door opening. Fortunately they weren't in immediate sight of it, but there was the sound of two voices, and Odo barely had time to hastily morph into a datapad before Worf and Nerys were in sight.

The timing of this was such that Jadzia did not give Worf the swooping, wet welcome home kiss she'd planned for, but politely pecked him hello before greeting Nerys, who had agreed to eat dinner with them. Jadzia had wanted for her to do so since they'd arrived on the starbase, but now she wished they hadn't inconvenienced Odo so badly. And who knew what it felt like for him, when Nerys picked him up in her hand and set him on an adjoining table so she could sit in his chair.

Worf had not yet spent any time that day with Turink, and on Jadzia's persuasion he now made it a point to have a least a few minutes for him daily, so he went to their son's bedroom, where he had been (hopefully) reviewing his lessons. Jadzia saw Nerys visibly relax when he was gone; she'd been having to hold herself up for him.

"It'll be all right," Jadzia said to her. "Two more days and it'll be all right. He did tell you he'll probably write the letter tomorrow afternoon?"

"He did," said Nerys, but there was something odd in the way she said it, it seemed to make her sound more tired than she usually did these days. That was partly an illusion, though; underneath that worn exterior Jadzia knew there lay a woman whose anger might drag her very far. She worried sometimes if it might be at the expense of her old friend's soul. What was Odo thinking right now, seeing her like this? "So, how's Turink?"

"Doing really well, actually. Though we do need to get him into a school." That would be its own mess.

"Is there one on the starbase?"

"A very rudimentary one; personnel don't tend to stay here long. A smarter idea might be to send him to a boarding school planetside, but..."

"You don't want to send him away." Not even because she'd miss him as her primary reason, but because she was afraid trouble happening, and her and Worf not being there to do anything about it.

"Exactly. And I don't even know how long we're even going to stay here. Worf's got a point, I suppose, when he says Turink shouldn't get too attached to any location besides his homeworld." Though while she didn't quite want to say it out loud, part of Jadzia wondered if Worf was overdoing it, insisted Qo'nos could be his half-Trill son's only homeworld. She herself definitely wanted to take him to Trill at some point. Just so he could see it. There was no harm in that, was there?

But then Worf returned. "I was telling Kira I would have to formally interview her, recording the interview, because that should be on record." That was unlike him, Jadzia thought, to stick to procedure like that, but then his years as Ambassador had complicated him.

Then suddenly he looked at her, and after years of marriage she recognized the ever so slight movements of his brow to be a sign he was scrutinizing her deeply. "Jadzia," he said, "you haven't been to the power levels?"

"No, of course not," she lied. They'd had one big argument about this, after which Jadzia had decided it wasn't worth it to try to get him to either give her permission to go down into the starbase's depths or admit that she shouldn't need his permission in the first place. He'd read one little article about some symbiont suffered radiation damage and killing the host and he'd been paranoid about radiation since. It was no good to repeat that the host in question had been in frail health already.

And meanwhile, one of the few scientific projects Jadzia had been able to do on Qo'onos had involved the effect of accumulated matter-antimatter reaction on an area's radiation levels over the years. There was no place better to study that than a starbase's power levels; even starships usually didn't last long enough to provide the kind of readings she'd gotten from this one, which had been orbiting Martisheva for over a century, since the planet had joined the Federation. Another year and it would probably have to be cleaned out; power levels couldn't be left to lie much longer than this for safety reasons. In short, this was a kind of unique opportunity.

Jadzia had even hid her notetaking files, much as Worf rarely looked at them, and they weren't even comprehensible at the moment. She'd been down there for two hours that morning, working as speedily as she could; as a sop to her husband and out of actual concerns she was minimizing her exposure, and scribbled down a mad jumble; she might need to read them slowly just to understand them when she looked at them again, and then she needed to find a couple of unobserved hours to write her findings up properly.

Meanwhile, Worf still looked suspicious. "There are other things you can do here," he reminded her. "Didn't you say there were chemicals on Martisheva occurring naturally nowhere else in known space?"

"Yeah," said Jadzia. "I'll probably look at that." She didn't mention most of those were radioactive as well. "And I've already been contacted by one of the planet's top scientists, Juret Maids-she's actually pretty famous in this sector; I'd heard her name a thousand times since we came here." She was starting to relax now, with the joy of that meeting. Sweet waters of Trill, but she'd never thought she'd be this happy to be a full time _scientist_ again. It had been nearly ten years.

"Did she talk about anything specific?"

"Not yet. But she'll probably want to talk to me again."

"Jadzia," He went back that same suspicious tone he'd asked her about the power levels. Damn it. "You won't do anything unauthorized for her?"

"Of course not," she snapped, and there she really wouldn't. She couldn't afford to, not when she and Worf were both technically under threat for court martial for the crime of saving each other's asses against orders. Neither of them could be prosecuted for what they'd done so far because of the delicacy of the surrounding circumstances, but it meant they both had to keep their noses squeaky clean for the rest of their careers.

And Worf knew that, so thankfully he had no trouble believing her. Instead he turned back to Nerys. "We can meet again tomorrow; my shift ends at 1400 hours."

This was when perhaps Jadzia should have extended an invitation to Nerys to stay for dinner. She herself hadn't spent nearly enough time with her since they'd both arrived on the Starbase, and she knew she had to be lonely; everyone else here knew nothing of her except her reputation, which still was pretty bad. But not only was Odo there, but there was something about the way Worf had just spoken that made it clear he didn't want her there. Jadzia couldn't imagine why, but she was also getting the general idea she shouldn't push him that evening. So she just said, "I hope to see you again too, maybe after?"

She regretted it a moment later, when Nerys' quick, "Okay, thank you," didn't quite conceal that she was hurt by the dismissal. Five years ago Jadzia didn't think she would've been, but everything was different now.

When she was gone Worf immediately barked angrily at her, "Now tell me what it is you're keeping from me!"

Before Jadzia could think to explain, Odo did instead, by hastily morphing back to human form. "I'm sorry," he said. "She came in so quickly, and I just couldn't..."

Worf had leapt back and pulled his phaser out, and while he lowered it on seeing it was Odo, he didn't put it away as he demanded, "Tell me what you are doing here. You are supposed to be in the Gamma Quadrant!"

He did at least relax once Odo had explained how he'd been kicked out and how he'd managed to get back to the Alpha Quadrant, and on hearing he wanted to join Starfleet, he readily agreed to write the recommendation. And then he even invited Odo to stay while they ate dinner, so he could tell them both more about his adventures.

Jadzia noted, however, as the two of them ate and Odo talked away, that he carefully glossed over the events between his docking at Deep Space 11 and his arriving on the starbase. Maybe it was that he just didn't want to talk about them twice in one evening, but she wondered too how much Odo really trusted Worf, whom he had never been that close too despite their having to work together, maybe in fact because of their having to work together. Though she couldn't help but think it was a good call on his part if he didn't. One never knew when Worf's sense of duty would kick in and cause him to turn against a friend. She could rely on him to refrain against her or Turink or another member of the House of Martok, but not against anyone else.

There was plenty to tell him too; he knew the general history of everyone he'd known, but not the details, such as what Worf and Jadzia had spent most of their time doing on Qo'onos, the crazy things one ran into the world from which the Klingon Empire was governed, and especially how badly that empire and its citizens had been damaged by the war, much more than the Federation had been, really. Jadzia had spent a lot of time doing humanitarian work on those worlds which had been closer to Dominion space and had been truly devastated; of all the things she'd done the past five years, that was what she was most proud of. And Odo appeared pleased to hear about it, asking her extra questions and even laughing when she told him her favorite story, the one that always seemed to irritate Worf for some reason, about the two young Klingon boys on Kharzan and Turink's old chewed up _roosi_ doll.

"Would you like to see Turink?" Worf finally asked. "He is napping, but it would be appropriate to wake him to see you." Odo said that he would, and off they went, to Turink's new room, where he was actually just waking up.

Sometimes it was a little strange for Jadzia Dax when it came to her son. In many ways he was the best part of her life, the way she knew he was supposed to be. He especially had been during her first two years living among the Klingons, when she'd rarely been off Qo'onos, on which she'd had too little to do besides raise him. But now, at seven years of age, he was starting to turn into a a bit of a bad-tempered kid who often didn't feel like talking to either her or Worf, and who couldn't seem to talk to anyone his own age without getting into a wrestling match with them.

Worf had told her Alexander hadn't been unlike him at that age, and certainly all the other Klingon boys Jadzia had met had been like that too, but it still made her feel like a failure as a mother. She wasn't supposed to have a son that embarrassed her all the time, wasn't supposed to catch herself thinking life would've been a lot easier if she hadn't had him, wasn't supposed to wish he'd been someone else's kid. And she definitely wasn't supposed to think he was the only problem with returning to Federation life, even though he was the biggest. She didn't know how it was going to work, sending him to school with children who would probably be prejudiced against him as a half-Klingon and who for obvious reasons he wouldn't be allowed to deal with the only way he knew how to. She didn't know how she was going to convince him to not attack his classmates before one of them ended up in intensive care, and then she didn't know what they'd have to do at all.

But for the moment the past lay in the past, and the future in the future, and one of the things that made Jadzia feel as if her heart would be crushed with her love for her son was when she was watching him wake up. He always blinked his head off, then yanked himself up, and for a moment looked confused, as if his being asleep hadn't made sense. But he actually didn't react well if the first sight he saw waking up was a stranger, so Worf carefully stood in front of Odo, while Jadzia hurried up to him, and greeted him with, "Hello, Turink, we have someone new for you to meet."

"You do?" He saw him already, she could tell. His eyes actually looked interested for nearly five seconds, maybe, before they turned dull with boredom and resignation.

"Yes," she still tried to make it sound exciting. "It's a man of a species you've never met, a very old friend of mine in fact, who I've told you about, but I didn't think you'd even get to meet."

He didn't look any more interested, but then Jadzia added, "His name is Odo," and on hearing the name he perked up. Odo was mentioned in his history texts, after all. "Odo, this is my son."

Odo held out his hand, and Turink nearly shot forward in his eagerness, which immediately made his mother feel very relieved, it would make the evening much easier. Turink did ask what was a rude amount of questions when they'd only just been introduced, but Odo was good and patient with the boy. He even freely talked about subjects Jadzia could tell were painful to him, such as what the Founders had thought and done just before he'd left them, and what Earth was like, since Turink had never seen it. Jadzia noticed though, that most of what he talked about concerning Earth was what he'd seen when they'd visited as the crew of Deep Space 9; he might very well had talked as if he hadn't been back since. She didn't know if Worf noticed this; he seemed a little absorbed in his own thoughts, which was a little strange, but hardly unknown, especially around Turink. Jadzia thought sometimes he still didn't really know how to be a father.

He ate his own supper with Odo still with them, though his table manners were now far worse than his father's. Odo seemed unaffected; as they all sat around watching him east he kept the same kind, almost sad gaze that made Jadzia want very badly to know exactly what he was thinking.

When Turink had finished eating, he said, "So is anyone going anywhere tonight?"

"I do not think so," said Worf sternly, and immediately Jadzia very badly wanted to, but she could hardly say so in front of Turink after his father had said no.

Odo maybe spotted it, though; he gave her a calculated look before saying, "I think I would like to see a little more of the Starbase; I still haven't seen much of it. But I could do with someone to help show me around."

"I'd be happy to later tonight," Jadzia quickly said. "After I put my son to bed, of course."

She briefly worried Worf would object, but the only one who did was Turink, yelling immediately that this wasn't fair to leave him out, and why did they always do this, go out and have fun when he had to go to bed. Jadzia let him have it all out, waiting patiently for nearly ten minutes before he started to run out of steam, at which point she said sternly, "If you continue to behave like that, Turink, I won't take you out at all on this Starbase, except to go to school. But stop this right now and go to bed and behave at school tomorrow, and I'll take you out to dinner the night after."

That got him to bed, and he even said he was sorry as she tucked him in, which was real progress. Worf and Odo continued to talk, mostly about matters concerning the recommendation, until she came out of his room with him asleep, and said, "So where do you want to go?"

Odo started, "I don't want to run into..."

"Don't worry about running into Nerys," Jadzia assured him. "She hasn't gone out that much since she got here. I'm afraid the scene here isn't as diverse as it was on Deep Space 9, but we can go to the lounge."

"I think I shall stay here," announced Worf.

Jadzia was too used to that to feel any disappointment. She kissed him lightly, and left with a "I'll be back by 2400."

They were out of their quarters and headed towards the turbolift when Odo said, "Actually, I'm not sure I want to go to the lounge. Even if I only see Starfleet officers I don't know, I don't want to be in their company in a place where I'm expecting to be sociable with them."

Jadzia thought for a moment, then said, "Odo, if we go somewhere else, could you maybe not mention it to Worf?"

"Where?" It was only when she heard his surprise that she realized how that sounded.

"Well, it's kind of silly," she said, "but I'm doing a little study of this base lowest levels that Worf doesn't want me doing because he's afraid of radiation poisoning, and just in case I don't get a chance to get down there again, I'd like to go now. If you don't mind, of course."

"That sounds interesting," said Odo, and down they went, Jadzia doing the talking as she explained her purpose to the engineers, most of whom had known already she was down there sometimes. They decreased quickly as the two of them went down further; it was standard operating procedure to monitor a starbase's power core very remotely and each individual typically did work just outside the core itself only once every two months. "Make sure you don't come back here for a few years," she said to Odo as she explained this to him. "I won't, of course."

"It is very quiet down here," was Odo's first observation when at last the doors slid open to admit them to the lowest level. It actually wasn't, quite, because they could hear the steady thrum of the core, powerful enough that the air around them almost vibrated even through the walls. But Jadzia understood what he meant when that was the only sound to greet them, and it did not stop the sound of her boots on the floor from echoing as if through true silence to ring in their ears.

She couldn't be distracted by it, though; she had to focus completely on her tricorder. She didn't even want to spend time explaining; she just walked straight to her first marking point, spend five seconds there doing her scans, strode on to the next, did the same, and then continued on. He followed without comment, surveying his surroundings with what didn't look like much understanding. At one point he gingerly reached out and pressed his hand against a bulkhead, and she though she saw it go a little moist before he pulled it away.

"Sorry," Jadzia said to him as she started to wrap up. "I know this isn't much fun."

"That's okay," Odo replied. "I don't find it uninteresting. I actually see more down here than you might think."

"Really?" Jadzia was piqued. "What can you see?"

"It's actually not see, exactly. It's hard to describe. But..." He put a hand out, fingers spread, and seemed to trace something invisible through the air. "It really isn't safe down here."

"We'll be out soon."

"It's fine; I'm not worried. Just...surprising how much is in the air down here."

True to her word, Jadzia finished up soon after that. "Remember not to mention this to Worf," she said to him back in the turbolift.

"What shall we tell them we did, then?"

"Just say we went to the main lounge, got a drink, did basic introductions, that sort of thing. No wait, then he'd expect you to know the main officers if he moves to introduce you to them tomorrow, which is something he really might do. Maybe we just chatted with the bartender; I'm not sure Worf's even met him yet. Though he probably will sooner or later, so we'd have to hope it's later enough he doesn't remember whether I came to the lounge on a night like this or not anymore. Or maybe we didn't go to the lounge. Maybe we got sidetracked stargazing. I don't know if he'd buy that, though."

"Jadzia," said Odo, "why don't you just tell him you went down there? He can't actually stop you, can he?"

"Odo, I can't!" she snapped at him. "Don't you realize this is more than just tonight, that I'm going to have to take those measurements at least five times more, and if he finds out, even if he doesn't outright forbid me, he'll huff and fuss and just make it all more hell than its worth. Just leave the whole thing be, please."

"As you wish," he replied gruffly, and they left it there and were mostly silent even as they took the long way back to her quarters. But she thought his pointedly saying goodbye to her before going in was a statement of objection to her lying.


	2. Nerys' Threat

The next morning, having been given a week to settle in, Jadzia entered onto duty properly. Between that and meeting with the man who ran the station's school, she didn't expect to get back to her quarters until well into the afternoon. For most of it she kept herself occupied enough she didn't even have time to think about Odo, or Nerys, or anyone else.

Certainly not during the final in-processing, when, as usual for a starbase, they took far too long to get her combadge properly programmed, and the commander gave her a welcoming speech that made her too aware that she'd served under commanders that had impressed her much more. Nor during the first hour or so in her new lab, which she'd been in already, but she was still getting used to the new version of the computer interface, which had gone through a dozen upgrades while she'd been on Qo'onos until it was barely recognizable. There was even one scary moment where she thought she'd accidentally deleted everything. She did get a breather once she felt all the objections and databanks in the lab were in order, and there was nothing to immediately do for an hour or so, during which she read further about Martisheva's famous chemicals and the animals that produced them, and contemplated what that said about the planet's ecosystem.

That was what she was doing when Commander Adam Sand came in. The starbase's second-in-command, he had not been expected. He looked a little furtive, and his voice was very quiet as he asked, "Can we talk alone, Commander Dax?"

"There's no one else in here," she answered.

"Good," he said, and moved away from the door even though it has closed already. "This may be a strange thing for you to hear on your first day here, but I would like to offer you a new position. This isn't general knowledge yet, and I would prefer if you kept it to yourself, but I have been offered command of the science ship _U.S.S. Hawking_. They're looking for a first officer, and I've been given the opportunity to take one with me. You've impressed me, Commander. I'd like to take you. I could even get you promoted, and I am aware, Commander, that that might otherwise be difficult for you."

A command position, on a science ship. Jadzia didn't find it that easy to keep her composure just at the thought of such a thing. Had she been without any commitments, it would have been perfect. And given she and Worf both had unofficial black marks on their career that ought to keep either of them from ever being promoted higher than their current rankings, that was just added bonus. She wanted to cry out _yes, I'll take it._

But she couldn't. Instead she asked, "What about my husband?"

"I don't know," he said, and then she knew she probably wouldn't be able to take it, especially when he added, "I may or may not have the ability to choose my own security chief."

She opened her mouth, but maybe guessing her response, Commander Sand said, "I don't want an answer right now. I'm going to make the formal offer in two or three days, depending on how things go on the Admiral's desk. Take time to think about it until then."

"Very well, sir," she said, though privately, she already knew it would only happen if he could make it to Worf as well, and she had the general feeling he couldn't, from what she had heard about security selections.

The rest of her first shift on the Starbase passed without incident, though she didn't get as much reading done as she would've liked; she kept thinking about the Commander's offer. She did wish badly she could take it.

Just before the shift ended she got a call from Mr. Bartoli, the man in charge of the Starbase's school. "Sorry for the inconvenience," he said, "but could you come here in half an hour? Commander Sand wants to talk to me at our original time. You can bring your lunch if you want."

Jadzia quietly wondered all through getting her lunch what exactly the Commander wanted with Mr. Bartoli, especially since she was pretty sure he was childless. Was he trying to recruit him too, or his wife, since he was a Starfleet spouse?

She didn't think it was a good idea to ask, though, when she got there, and he looked a little grim-faced even before she sat down. "So," he said to her. "Tell me about your son. Be advised his reputation precedes him."

That was not a good start, and Jadzia had to bite back the urge to snap at him, which would've made it worse. To prevent it, she said, "His full name is Turink Rozhenko, son of Worf, though we almost never use the human surname. He is seven years old, though keep in mind Klingons age pretty fast; think of him as being more along the lines of ten or eleven years old. Though he might still have to attend classes with the younger children, especially since I'm afraid Qo'onos does not have the strongest curriculums in the universe. We've been asking around about standardized testing to determine his level, though so far we've received contradictory answers."

"Those tests don't mean much anyway," said Mr. Bartoli; that was another think Jadzia and Worf had already heard from more than one person. "But what is this I've heard about his being involved in fights?"

"You shouldn't draw too much from that," said Jadzia. "Fights are practically required of the boys in Klingon schools." She wondered how long that line would last her.

"I believe you," he said, but he neither looked nor sounded like he really did. "Still, the largest problem I can see at the moment is his level; I, too, have heard something about the deficiency of the Klingon curriculum. I would like to bring him in for my own evaluation. Tomorrow morning, perhaps? When are you on shift then?"

"0800."

"That's fine; you can drop him off on your way. Fortunately the school is currently on our two-week break-we take one every three months, so we can determine his proper placement at our leisure."

Most of the rest of the interview was telling Jadzia things she knew already about the school: the hours, the students, the grades, the subjects. She listened through it with a good show of attention, asked questions mostly about the details she actually didn't know yet, and reminded herself that many Starfleet parents wouldn't have done the research about the school beforehand she had. One thing she could give him credit for was as far as she could tell he told no lies; her research had included avenues that would have exposed to her at least some of the lies he might have told.

It maybe went on a little too long, though; it was past 1330 when she headed back to her quarters. Her second shift was at 1800; unfortunate, as she would've liked to spend more time with Turink as well as get some good rest. Though she wasn't even sure Turink was in their quarters at the moment; he was submitting to a long examination by the Starbase's doctors that day.

Indeed, he wasn't there when she got in. Instead Nerys was waiting at the door with a very serious expression on her face, and her greeting was, "Hi, can we talk?" Looked like she wasn't going to be get much relaxation at all.

And then, when the door was shut behind them Nerys said, "Worf contacted me this morning and said he wasn't going to write me a recommendation."

"What?" Jadzia asked in shock. "Why not?"

"Because he's writing one for Odo instead." It broke Jadzia's heart all over again to hear the bitterness with which she said her former lover's name. "When did he come back to the Alpha Quadrant?"

"Two months ago. But we had no idea until last night," Jadzia started to explain. "The Link kicked him out..."

"Right," Nerys cut her off. "Did you know it is not customary for an outgoing Ambassador to write more than one recommendation for Starfleet, especially when it would be for two individuals belonging to two races not on the best terms with the Federation right now?"

Jadzia shook her head. "Look," she said, "I can try to convince Worf to do it anyway. It sounds a little silly, to be honest. Or we'll find someone else to write it." She thought for a moment about Commander Sand's offer, which would have enabled her to write it herself, but then againk, the promotion might still be denied even if she took the transfer.

"There won't be another willing to write it, you know that." Nerys was right; Jadzia thought, the whole sequence of events was too infamous. "So I have to have that recommendation out of your husband, Jadzia, one way or another."

There was something about the way she said this that made Jadzia uneasy, and she found herself saying, "Nerys, I hate to say this, but I can't promise you anything. Worf can get very stubborn sometimes, especially if he decides something is a matter of honor. It's perfectly possible that no matter what I say to him, he won't budge. So you should prepare yourself for that."

"I will not," was the harshly spoken reply. "Please understand, Jadzia, I won't be nice about this anymore. I'm different from who and what I used to be. These past two years things have been so bad I've had to be ruthless and heartless to everyone around me just to survive. If I've done that already, I can do it again."

Jadzia was now getting more and more alarmed by the moment, and she protested, "Nerys, you can't walk up to Worf and hold a phaser to his head and insist he write you a recommendation."

"I know that," she snapped. "That's not what I'm talking about. What I mean is what I know about you, what I know could destroy your career if it ever came out publicly. I know what you did near the end of the war when you and Worf escaped Cardassian space."

Jadzia shook her head. "You can't do that either. All the details about my disobeying orders are classified right along with where exactly Worf and I were when we were captured, and they aren't going to be declassified anytime soon. And it's not like anyone will care that I ran off to rescue my husband, not really. Starfleet won't court-martial me for it, not if they haven't already; the information's still too sensitive. You go talking about that to the masses, all that will happen if you'll be arrested. You took a Starfleet commission once, which means they are perfectly allowed to do that to you. And they will." And surely, Jadzia told herself, _surely,_ Nerys didn't know about what Starfleet Command didn't know about, what _no one_ knew about. She'd even kept it concealed from Worf, who'd slept through the whole thing while she'd been on watch alone.

Except that her next words were, "Oh no, Jadzia. I know about what happened when the two of you nearly crashed on Yormok III. I know who lured you there. I know what state you left him in, assuming he'd die and the secret of your deed would die with him. I ran into him a year ago, in the places I've been to. I must admit, hearing his story changed my view of you completely. I didn't believe him until he provided me with the recordings, which he left me with a copy of. I've spent all this time hoping I'd never have to use them, but make no mistake, Jadzia, I am ready to."

It took Jadzia a very long moment before she was able to think of what to say to that, during which Nerys pressed on, "Why did you do it, Jadzia? Why did you answer his distress call and then leave him?"

"He would have killed Worf," Jadzia said immediately. "He made it clear to me. He didn't care that we were rescuing him, he said, it was his duty as a relation of Duras, and the minute Worf woke he would challenge him to battle, and this was when Worf was in no state to fight him, and of course he still wouldn't have refused. I did everything I could to try to get him to give the idea up, and he wouldn't. He told me flat out, if I wanted my husband to live, I had to leave him there to die. So I did. I had to." She tried to keep the pleading out of her voice, but she couldn't. Her mind was racing, thinking about how the Federation public would probably react to that story, and how the Klingon government would definitely react, even if Martok backed her.

"Maybe you had to or maybe you didn't," shrugged Nerys. "Ultimately I'm past caring. If my application fails, those recordings come out. Understand?"

"You'll probably still be arrested," Jadzia protested weakly.

"There's no guarantee of conviction if all they have on me is your word," she shrugged. "And even if there was, I'm past caring about that too. That kind of fear has just led to me living on the fringe, and I'm through with that. It's all or nothing for me now."

"But Nerys," she was almost pleading now, "I'm telling you, I might not be able to do it. Are you really going to punish me for something I'm not able to do?"

For a moment she did look guilty. But then she said, "Well, I could always present the recordings to Worf instead, see what he does."

"He won't do anything," sighed Jadzia. "He's Worf. If anything, it'll harden him against you." That was all she was going to say to Nerys on that matter. But she thought about what she _knew_ Worf would also do, if the secret ever did become public, and she knew she really would do _anything_ to prevent that.

"We'll see," shrugged Nerys. "If we have to. But all I know is I'm through being isolated in disgrace when so far I've haven't done anything to deserve _that_. Back when the Cardassians got sadistic and started randomly going after people you know, we used to say to ourselves, might as well be guilty of what you're being punished for. Either the punishment stops, right now, or I'm going to take a Starfleet officer or two with me. Good day."

Jadzia said nothing to this. She dared not open her mouth, for fear she might let slip to Nerys just how much her final words had had their impact. For the same reason she didn't even move, but just stared as her old friend stomped out. Only when the door was safely closed did she stagger to the couch.

She knew already what she had to do, she supposed. She had to somehow convince Worf to write a recommendation for Nerys as well. She probably would have tried to do that anyway, and she had plenty of arguments she could make.

They could work, she told herself. She'd argued Worf into doing things against his normal nature before. Sometimes they had even been big things, and this was a silly human custom that surely couldn't be that important to him.

It would work. "It will work," she said out loud. She had to make it work, and therefore she would; it was as simple as that.

Worf arrived back after Turink, but he was napping, so at least she didn't have to worry about him overhearing anything complicated, and on impulse she said, "Nerys told me today you're not going to write her the recommendation."

"I cannot write one for both her and Odo. It is not allowed." He spoke it as a simply matter of fact. She might or might not be able to work with that.

"Are you sure about that?" she tried. "She did mention that, but she described it as custom rather than actual rule. You could conceivably ignore it."

But he shook his head, saying, "I cannot."

"Why?" she demanded, trying to sound genuinely angry; after all, had Nerys not made the threat to her she had, she actually would've felt indignant on her old friend's behalf. "You ought to think about the fact that she shouldn't even need it; she even received a Starfleet commission once. And that you were the only officer willing to write it isn't a fair situation for her; she's been wronged more by the galaxy than she's wronged anyone else, and I don't care what anyone else says about that, it's true, and you know it. Personally, I think it would be almost without honor to just deny her what she deserves on such arbitrary grounds."

"It is not arbitrary grounds, and we know nothing of the sort," Worf barked in response. "She has never even talked much about her role in the entire affair. And to write the recommendation, remember, I had to ask her about it, and it was like pulling ridge-hairs out of a petulant child to get even a minimum of information. She is still hiding something, Jadzia; I am certain of that."

She probably was, Jadzia thought; when she remembered the Nerys she had dealt with earlier that day, she had to face that she was certainly capable of wrongdoing. Jadzia wasn't sure how much she even might have blamed her, at least for whatever she did related to the scandal. But Worf would, so instead she said, "Maybe she was trying to protect someone else. Remember how many other names were connected to the scandal, and also that rumor that Shakaar came close to being indicted; maybe she still cares for him enough to protect him. At any rate she might not have wanted to sell him out just to get into Starfleet."

"If he has done wrong then she ought not to participate in the concealment of it. She should've gone to the authorities as soon as she knew. If Shakaar has committed crimes, he should be in jail. If you are right, then I could not write a recommendation for her even if I wasn't writing one for Odo."

Jadzia's heart was sinking already, hearing this, and then he added, "In fact, even when we first discussed this matter I was inclined against it. I might have refused if you had not been so in favor of it. But I can only go so far in indulging you, Jadzia. To write a recommendation for Kira now is simply impossible; I would not change things now if I could. We should go wake up Turink from his nap." And before she could protest further, he had stalked off towards their son's room.

"I'll let you have some father-son time," she called after him, then slunk to the far side of the room, even as she tried not to lose her composure so much. She wished in that moment that she could still harbor some hope of changing his mind, but she knew him too well for that. She knew exactly what would happen now, unless someone or something intervened.

Somehow she had her face back on when Worf and Turink emerged, and the latter ran over to her and said, "Mama! Have you heard the news that Dr. Bashir has been offered a promotion?"

"No!" Jadzia exclaimed, truly stunned. He had never said a word about the possibility. That wasn't like him, to not advertise a potential success at all; she remembered the message he'd sent to everyone he knew when he'd been promoted to lieutenant commander a couple of years back.

She exchanged glances with Worf, who said, "Dr. Bashir had a conversation with him earlier today, in which he advised him he might be promoted off this Starbase. But I have not heard anything about this either."

"I'll contact him about it," said Jadzia, as the thought formed in her head that if Julian got another promotion, it would probably be into a position where he would be able to write Nerys a recommendation. It was suddenly all she could do not to show any sign of the desperate hope that ignited a heart that had just started despairing.

She wished she could have run to the console then. But that would almost certainly have caused questions from Worf that she absolutely could not answer. Instead she had to stay there, acting like their entire universe wasn't threatening to crash and burn, even wrestle with Turink and smile and laugh the entire time, especially when he pinned her, and basked in the praise from both his parents for doing so. He didn't even hurt her at all, which was usually a relief, of course, but now it meant she didn't have an excuse to comm Julian a little earlier.

It wasn't until Turink was eating his supper that the two of them ended up comming him together, which wasn't exactly what Jadzia would've liked to have had happen. Still, it finally gave her the chance to learn if he could indeed prove their salvation, even if Worf could never know about it. So she kept that smile on her face as Worf greeted him and repeated what Turink had said. But then Julian shook his head and said, "Yes, I have received an offer, and in truth, when I talked to Turink, less than half an hour later, I was seriously considering taking it. But now I don't think I will."

"Why not?" It was much louder and more upset than Jadzia would have liked it to be when it came out of her; both men were clearly confused, which felt to her like a blow.

It took another moment even after his face turned thoughtful for Julian to respond. Finally he sighed, "It's...difficult to explain. But right now I just want to stay here."

She would have to talk to him later, Jadzia knew. Away from Worf. Not even just because he couldn't know why Jadzia needed him to take that promotion; she wasn't absolutely certain she dared tell even him about that. She knew, somewhere in her, that ever since she had started dating Worf Julian had never talked to her completely honestly in his presence, nor she in his, and they would need to be able to.

For now, Worf responded, "If that is what you wish, then. When will you answer? Will it be before you next meet with Turink?"

"Should be," said Julian. "I'm afraid he might be disappointed, especially if I have to take any more blood samples from him." He chuckled at that, but even as she faked a chuckle back, Jadzia thought there was something odd about the way he did it, though she couldn't pinpoint what.

Most of the rest of their conversation ended up being about Turink, and Jadzia got through it, feeling guilty for how hard it was to concentrate, even when they were discussing the more important details.

Towards the end of it, they ended up agreeing to meet for dinner in two days. That cheered all three of them, until Julian then said, "I'm going have dinner with Kira tomorrow, and I'd like to meet with Odo too. Do you know when you might see him next?"

"Tomorrow," said Worf. "We are scheduled to meet to further discuss his recommendation after I get off shift."

Then, Jadzia thought. She had the feeling Worf would ask Odo every question he could think of. This interview with Nerys had taken nearly three hours, and she was sure he'd thought up more things to ask since then. There would be time to explain everything to Julian, if she so chose, and explain the complicated impact the information becoming public would have on Klingon politics twice if he didn't understand it the first time. There would also be time to beg, if she had to. And if she could get him to agree to it, then when he met with Nerys, he could tell her immediately she would have her recommendation.

The evening shift was the longest duty shift in her life. Absolutely nothing happened during it, which was partly a relief, because she would not have been able to keep her mind fully on task, but it also made it worse, being left with nothing to do by try to continue her reading from the morning, and that was not nearly enough to keep her mind from going through the same process over and over. _He's got to agree to it. Do I need to tell him what Worf would do? What if he doesn't understand that I can't have him do that? I can't tell him; I can't tell him anything. But what if I have to tell him? How to tell him that Nerys is threatening me? What if he judges me for doing what I did? No, he won't. He'll understand; I know he'll understand. But what if he still won't do it? He can't, he has to do it. I have to convince him…_

At last it was over. The officer who came to relieve her was a minute or so late; she paced the entire time. The turbolift felt offensively slow. Jadzia hated how she felt by the time she was speedwalking to her door, so anxious and feeling like everything was at stake. Well, she reminded herself, everything was. She would get Julian to agree, the problem would go away, and then everything would be normal again.

She was almost afraid as she opened the door that Worf would still be up. But no, he and Turink were both fast asleep, which she carefully confirmed, before putting her face close to the console in the living area, turning the sound down until she could only just hear its quiet _boop,_ and commanding, "Access Messages."

The Message display came up, and with it, to Jadzia's shock, a short, written message from Julian: _Come see me tomorrow afternoon. There is something I need to tell you in person._

It had been unread, and the timestamp was 0004; Worf must have finally gone to bed before its arrival. So he knew Jadzia might receive it alone, she thought, unless he figured she'd just collapse into bed without looking at her messages first. Surely he hadn't seen that as an advantage, though, she told herself. It made no sense, if he really had something that important to tell them, that he'd send a message addressing both of them while wanting only her to see it. She was just trying to mentally justify not telling Worf about any of this until her meeting with him tomorrow was over, because she already knew she wasn't going to.

And yet…he had always been much closer to her than to Worf. And even if maybe he didn't consciously not want Worf there tomorrow, unconsciously might be another matter.

When she commed him, he was bleary-eyed and his hair was heavily mussed; of course she'd woken him up. Just another necessary act at this point. "Hey, Julian," she said to him. "We just got your message. Worf can't make it; he's got a meeting with Odo. But I can meet with you any time after 1400 hours."

Julian looked for a moment like he was going to protest, ask if the meeting with Odo could be rescheduled, or at least if Worf had actually seen this message yet. But maybe, deep down, he did prefer to talk only to her, because he just said, "1430 then?"

"Agreed. I'll let you go back to sleep now. Sorry for waking you. Goodnight."

She was so quick to turn the comm off then he barely had time to wish her goodnight as well. She wished having gotten that task done could relax her, but no; she wouldn't be relaxed until the following afternoon.

She managed to crawl into bed without waking Worf, though he muttered in his sleep and turned over. But she knew already it was going to take her a while to fall asleep, even as she burrowed her head into her pillow. Worf's head rested on no pillow, which left his wife staring at one of his ears. It occurred to her that she couldn't remember the last time she had cooed into it, the way she had done so many times when their relationship had been young, and he had gone from being annoyed by it to finally admitting, embarrassed, that he actually kind of liked it. She wasn't even sure why she had fallen out of the habit. True, doing it in public on Qo'nos would've been a very bad idea, but it had always been something done in private more than not. She wasn't even sure how he'd react now if she tried.

Maybe she ought to try to do things like that again, though. Not yet. Give him time to get used to being on a Starfleet base again, and preferably be done with this crisis, which he wouldn't know about, of course, but he didn't have to.

Although if he did, even apart from the affair becoming public, she knew what he would do then, and that she would be why she loved him, and why she had married him. Even if it would inevitably lead to that which she simply _could not_ let happen.


	3. Julian's Secret

Worf went on shift before her the next morning, which made that easier. She ate breakfast with Turink, and listened to him talk about the previous day. There at least she found one mercy: he'd had a good day yesterday. He'd met with two other boys about his mental age on the starbase, including one from a silicon-based species whom he'd found it fun to wrestle with, and so far they were getting along, or so he claimed. "I like it here," he said. "I know not everybody likes that I'm half-Klingon, but it's no longer the case that everyone sees me as weak and inferior because of I'm half-Trill, you know?"

"I know," said Jadzia softly, wishing Worf had been there to hear his son confirm what she'd always been pretty sure of, though she wasn't sure he would've admitted to it in front of his father, that he had received that treatment on Qo'nos.

The medical exam has obviously been more stressful, but at least he had been told he was in good health. It seemed to Jadzia, as she listened to her son talk about it, that he viewed himself as having conquered that exam, and so now was ready to conquer any academic exams too.

It was good to see him adapting well. Especially, she couldn't help but think, because of what might happen with him if she didn't avert this disaster. If worst came to worst, he did have two sets of grandparents who were both willing to take him in, although Jadzia's parents had never seen enough of him for either their or her own liking. She supposed he might do better on Earth than on Trill, where they were more used to aliens, although obviously that he was half-Klingon was going to be a problem anywhere he went outside Klingon space.

His determination to conquer the exams also meant she had no trouble getting him to take up the right padd and buckle down to study before she went on duty. She left him hunched over it and quietly repeating to himself what sounded like a Vulcan scientific equation.

The lab overnight had received a shipment from the planet of newly discovered fossils from Martisheva's arctic regions, and that kept Jadzia nicely occupied throughout her shift. Had she not had the most dreaded event of her life hanging over her head, she would have been very happy that day. Even as it was, she could not help but marvel over a couple of them that were millions of years old, containing evidence of some of the earliest life that evolved on the planet, forgetting everything for a moment or so.

Two hours before her shift ended, she was just entering the results of her analysis of one of the newer ones, which had a lot of information attached to it, when Commander Sand came in. He was not someone Jadzia would've expected that day at all, and nor was he something she at all wanted to deal with, not before she knew which way her entire life was about to go.

He first looked around to see if they were alone, then said, "Unfortunately I have bad news. Yesterday when I offered you a position as my first officer, you asked if I could bring your husband on board as well. I asked about this, and I now can confirm the answer is no. The Admiral who has the charge of the command is insisting I take one of his people for head of Security, as well as for Engineering, and your husband is too high-ranked to be under him either. He would've been overqualified anyway, honestly.

I know you'll probably turn the position down now, but I would still ask, Commander, that you not do so this moment. Please take the extra day?"

Had he asked this the previous day, her superior or no, Jadzia probably would have officially given him her refusal right then anyway. Aside from the knowledge that she couldn't take it, it displeased her when superior officers made these kind of pressure-filled requests to her, and it also raised the question of how happy she'd be serving under him, even if the position was in every other way what she'd always wanted. But now she was aware she might just need what that new position and rank could bring her. She could write Nerys her recommendation, for one thing.

"Very well," she said. "I'll give you my answer tomorrow night." If for any reason Julian failed her, she doubted Nerys would take that long to act. In fact, she was hoping she at least would give her time enough and not act sooner.

She went back and forth about comming her as she went to Julian's. But she ultimately decided against it. Best not to give her any hopes until they could be fulfilled. Besides, Worf might or might not be too busy to talk to her anyway.

When she rang the bell, she heard Julian's, "Jadzia? Is that you?" which sounded nervous and unlike him. When she called out, "Yes, it's me," the door slid open to reveal him still in uniform, but in his blue undershirt; he even still had his boots on. "Come in quickly," he said.

He'd been on the starbase a little longer than Jadzia and Worf had, which made it shocking that he hadn't unpacked. His suitcases sat by the table, one of them opened out on the floor with its contents scattered and spilling over. The rest of the room was bare; he hadn't even set up the holo of his family that had been taken after his father had finally been released. "Wow," she commented, "have they been keeping you extra busy or something?"

"No," said Julian. "It's a little more complicated than that. Or maybe simpler. Sit down."

Something was wrong, obviously. In fact, when she took a close look at Julian now, Jadzia saw other things, like that it didn't look like he'd been sleeping much, and, more than that, he looked almost ill. "I suppose I should get you a drink," he said. "You might want it too, I'm afraid."

"No," she said, because she couldn't afford it for her side of this conversation. Although vital as that was to her and Worf's future, it was getting harder to concentrate on that, when all she could think was a desperate _What's wrong with him, please…_

He looked over at the replicator, then shook his head. "I should be sober for this conversation myself," he said. "I suppose after it I can drink all I want now, until…"

"Until what?!" That sounded like…_No. No, please no…_

"Well," he took a deep breath. "Remember when I once said I was glad that the person who did my genetic resequencing knew what he was doing? Well, it turns out, he made a mistake. A tiny one, which for over thirty years didn't matter, but in genetic engineering, even the slightest thing off will spell disaster sooner or later, and later has become now. Became it a few months ago, actually, when I started having memory issues. Took me most of the time since to find out what the problem was."

"And the prognosis?" Jadzia asked. _Please, let the answer be anything but…_

"It's not an absolute one yet," sighed Julian. "I might not even get that; it's not like there are many examples we doctors can look to in order to get one. But given what's breaking down in here?" He sadly tapped his forehead. "Death might be what will happen if I'm lucky."

"No, that can't be true!" Jadzia protested. "And can't they go back in and fix you, like you did to Sarina?"

"I've looked into that." He sounded so, so tired. "But my brain issues aren't the same as hers. If I had a year, maybe I could come up with a version of the operation I performed on her which would work on me, or some colleague could. But in a year, if I'm still alive? I'll be a blubbering idiot unable to remember what happened a few days ago if I'm lucky, and even less capable of doing anything if I'm not, and probably beyond the kind of help that Sarina had. They'll have to take me to the institution they still keep Jack and Patrick and Lauran in, and what will they think, seeing me as in worse condition than even them-though they might not even be allowed to see me, to keep them from being traumatized."

"But it's not absolute." Jadzia felt herself grasping at what she could.

"It's over a 90% chance."

As Jadzia still sat there, trying to face what she was realizing was the unfaceable, he said, "I made what's going to be the closest I'll get to a full diagnosis a couple of days ago. Right now I'm trying to settle my affairs, and taking care of a few last things. Tomorrow morning I'm going to hand in my resignation. I'm going to go home, go see my parents, then probably do some more traveling; there have been some places I've always wanted to see. I probably have at least a couple of months before I really start to degenerate. If I have time I'll come see you again, but once I really start to go, I don't want any of you to see me like that."

The thought that this might be the last she ever saw of Julian made Jadzia burst into tears, rough, fast ones that nearly ripped themselves out of her eyes. And now he was moving around and giving her a hug, he, who should be the one crying, not her, but she was just feeling so weak and worn, and she wanted to just spill everything, not even for the sake of making her request, but just so Julian would know, so there wouldn't be that awful barrier between them.

"Oh, Jadzia," he sighed, and pressed the chastest of kisses into her hair. "You know, for the first time, I'm happy you married Worf. I think…maybe you know why I wasn't before this. But imagine if I was your husband, and now this was happening to he who you'd been planning to spend the rest of your life with. Now you'll cry for me, but you'll still have him, and your beautiful little boy…"

"Beautiful!" Even under the circumstances, Jadzia couldn't help but snort through her tears. "You know most wouldn't describe it that way."

"He's your son. Of course he's beautiful."

"You shouldn't be talking to me like this," sobbed Jadzia. "You shouldn't feel like that about me. You should feel that way about…"

"About who?" It was his turn to snort. "About someone else that in a year's time I'd then either make a widow or burden with a literal idiot husband who she'd have to divorce is she had any sense? No, I think things have worked out for the best."

_But you should never feel that way about yourself._ Not even if he was about to die, not even then, because as far as Jadzia was concerned, Julian deserved the love and devotion she had never been able to give him, and the woman who would travel with him and nurse him to the bitter end and be thankful even in her grief that she'd gotten to have him.

Besides, if she'd married him, she wouldn't have committed the sin she had. There wouldn't have been a need, probably. But then again, she'd always known that marrying Julian would have led to her having a much easier life, even if she'd never given too much thought to it. She'd never made her choices based on what was easy.

And she wasn't going to now, either. It would be easy, she thought, to explain everything. She thought if she did, Julian would give up the last months of his life, take the promotion and use it to save her and Worf. It was the logical thing to do, he would say; they had their entire lives to live out preserved from disaster; what was one year compared to that? Jadzia could tell herself that as well, repeat to herself that Julian had willingly made the choice, and also that she'd done what she'd had to do. She could do that every day for the rest of her life, and eventually, she thought, she wouldn't even feel that guilty anymore.

But thinking about doing all that, taking advantage of this man, who had loved her for years, quietly and resignedly after he had been forced to give up all hope, who had acted as her friend and often confident, listening without complaint whenever she'd been mad at Worf, even helped them have Turink…it made Jadzia feel ill. She wasn't going to do it, not even for this.

Except now Julian was looking at her and saying, "Is there anything you need to tell me? It looks to me like there is." Nothing in his voice besides concern; he wasn't even hoping for a declaration of feeling or anything like that.

"Nothing you need to worry about now," she said. "Or should."

"No, Jadzia," he said. "I know you. You're trying to spare me something, and please, don't do that out of pity."

"I can't," she protested. "I can't take advantage of you. I'd be a monster if I did."

"Jadzia, please, if you need my help…you ought to have known already I'd do anything for you, and that's even more true now, when what would I lose by doing it?" He was getting up from his seat now, moving to kneel at her feet, and that sight was not one Jadzia was ever going to be willing to see. In a desperate move to stop him she grabbed him to pull him up, a desperate tiny _please_ escaped her, and next thing she knew they were kissing, hard and deep.

It felt good, better than Jadzia had ever thought it might. Her hands found Julian's face; his skin was soft. He didn't even flinch from how cold she knew her hands were. His arms were around her, and he was kissing without shame, making tiny sounds into her mouth that Jadzia thought just might wreck her.

Some tiny voice in the back of her mind was yelling at her to pull back, but she wasn't listening, not right now. Now instead she heard the blood roaring in her ears, the shifting of cloth against cloth, the overwhelming part of her brain that just wanted to go on kissing this man forever.

She didn't even know how long they'd kissed for when they finally parted, foreheads still pressed together. She kept her eyes and hands on that flushed, panting face, tried to memorize the feel of it beneath her hands, since she knew she'd certainly never touch it again, even if she perhaps might again see it.

"There's no one in my life who's meant to me what you have," he finally breathed. "Even if I had longer to live, I don't know if there ever could be, though that doesn't really matter now." He shook his head. "I shouldn't be troubling you with this part."

"Quit acting like you're now just a burden on the universe!" she cried, feeling even worse when he gently but firmly pushed away from her. "You never were and you never will be."

But Julian was shaking his head. "If you don't want my help, you should go. Before you possibly do something you'll regret for the rest of your life."

The crazy thing was, while she'd no doubt feel guilty afterwards, Jadzia wasn't sure she would actually regret it. She knew she ought to, but some instinct warned her the feeling wouldn't come, at least so long as Worf never found out.

So much where it would all be fine, just as long as her husband never found out.

It was that awareness, and the fear, that got Jadzia to do as he had said, to turn around and start walking out, the door barely getting open for her in time, fast enough there wasn't time to feel any temptation to look back. For ten more minutes after even that she strode down the corridor, at least one ensign scurrying out of her way, putting more distance between herself and the man she still wasn't sure she wouldn't want to run back to if she stopped to think.

Eventually she began to tire; it had been a long day of worrying even before this. She slowed her pace down, but continued walking, making her way back to her quarters.

By the time she got there, she had relived that kiss three times, each time pushing it from her mind, knowing she needed to forget it had happened, even though she also knew she never would. Worf wouldn't be in, she reminded herself. Turink wouldn't either. No one would be in their quarters, and she would be safely alone to break down and cry and figure out how she was going to live even with losing Julian like this, let alone the even worse thing happening at the moment.

Except Nerys was there. Jadzia hadn't even known she knew how to break through Starfleet locks. She was so shocked she was completely unable to speak as she just stood there, then at Nerys' impatient gesture finally stepped forward just enough for the door to close behind her.

"I just had another exchange of messages with Worf," she said. "I won't even repeat what he said. Honestly, I'm starting to lose a lot of my respect for him. Enough that I really don't feel bad about doing what I'll have to do now."

That just made Jadzia know what she herself now had to do. She wished she had a knife on her. Then she could've done it right away. But instead she could only hiss, "You won't. I won't let you. In fact, you'd better contact Worf right and now and tell him you're about to lose all your power over him, because it'll be gone with me!"

She hadn't even finished talking before she started a purposeful stride towards the kitchenette, but before she could get more than a couple of meters Nerys, her resistance-fighter reflexes undulled by all the years that had passed, was in front of her, with a, "No, Jadzia, you're not killing yourself."

"You," Jadzia growled, "do not get to act like you're my friend anymore, especially not when you're driving me to do this to protect my husband."

"Fine, then. You kill yourself right now and I'll frame him for murder."

She obviously could, and at the moment, Jadzia couldn't think of an immediate way to off herself which would make it impossible for Nerys to make it look like she'd been killed. She sagged, and said, "Well, I know what he said to you when you told him."

"Told him? Oh," Nerys shook her head. "Actually, I haven't told him anything yet. He didn't give me a chance. But the minute I get back to my quarters, I'm going to start writing a message to him. I don't know if I'll finish it tonight, but I'll try. Do you know, if you kill yourself after I walk out of here, and I still go public with the story, anyone who even slightly believes in any of the Klingon stereotypes will find a way to blame him for it, even if they don't think he did it himself?"

"You don't get the chance to frame him, then what does that matter?" Jadzia could have laughed, had she felt less devastated. "He won't care what any of them think."

"But I think you would. And I'm pretty sure, sooner or later, that your son would."

That last one stopped Jadzia's thoughts in their tracks. Nerys could tell, too, and she pressed on: "You want to condemn him to grow up with two parents disgraced, one dead? And you know Worf needs help when it comes to raising children. Just look at the whole sequence of events that happened with his first son."

"That wasn't entirely his fault," Jadzia growled, repeating the speech she'd made more than once. "His parents struggled with Alexander first."

"Yeah, Alexander, who didn't get along with his peers, who struggled with only being partially Klingon, and whose mother died a violent death when he was young. Sound familiar?"

It did, all too much. And then Nerys said, "But I do know one thing Worf would do, what any good parent would do. That's protect his children at all costs. Even that of his honor."

"You don't know what Worf would do." Not like Jadzia herself did.

"I worked alongside him, much more closely than you did, at times. I know enough. I know that I'll get even more than my recommendation out of him now. That was all I would have demanded, you know, when this whole thing started. Foolish of me. I've thought since, of what will probably await me when I reach Earth. Don't tell me they'll want me there. I know they won't. They might still grant me admission. From what I understand about Federation-Bajoran relations right now, they'll probably worried Bajor will be offended if they don't. I need all the paperwork in order, but if I get it, I get that much.

But do you really think they won't look for any excuse, and I mean _any_, to throw me out once I get there? Or, if they can't find one, they won't make sure I never obtain any rank above Ensign? And I've worked too hard and lost too much-"

"Yeah," Jadzia interrupted, her rage kicking in, "like all of your morals."

But she was chilled to the bone by the complete lack of change in Nerys' expression, and the cold way she replied, "You haven't seen anything yet, Jadzia. You and Worf, you'll both be dealing with me for a long time. I get expelled, it all comes out. And after I graduate, you'll get me up to my old rank as fast as possible. Since the start of this, by the way, I've been hoping I might eventually get myself into a position where I can help Bajor, but then, I was worried the way things go at Starfleet, I might be old before I got that far. But you two, you're going to get me there within a few years."

"Are you truly going to try to justify yourself?!" Jadzia demanded, even more appalled. "When once, the Kira Nerys I knew…"

"The Kira Nerys you know had a history of doing sometimes violent things indeed when her planet was at stake," she retorted. "Things that sometimes pushed the boundaries of interplanetary law, at the very least. I know you don't like to remember that, of course, didn't like to think of the fact that at one time I was a terrorist."

"Only because you had to be. Bajor's not going to be in that situation again."

"You don't know what's going to happen on Bajor." There was a very real resentment in the way she said that. "Even if the Cardassians aren't really in shape to do what they once did to it again, no society recovers that quickly. And you saw what happened a year after the Occupation ended, and what's happened most recently. For the record, Jadzia, I would give my life to prevent that from happening again."

"That's your life, not mine," Jadzia protested. "That's still at stake here."

"Didn't I just point out how killing yourself will do Worf no good? I'll get what I want either way. And in fact, speaking of your marriage," and there was something new her tone here, some hint of genuine regret, "don't you think you should've told your husband about all of this, long ago?"

"You really don't understand…"

"Maybe I don't. But you know what, Jadzia? I'm going to do you one last favor, explaining this to him. I'll even try to emphasize that you really felt you needed to do it to keep him alive. I do feel he ought not to be angry with you, though I suppose it's too much to hope for he won't be. At least you won't have to keep any dark secrets from him anymore."

Had she said only an hour ago, of course, that would've been true. And Jadzia certainly wasn't telling her now why it no longer would be.

So instead she remained silent, as Nerys turned and walked out. The door was in the process of closing behind her when she turned and said, "You have six hours to tell him before I do."

After stumbling into the nearest chair, for a few minutes, all Jadzia could do was cry. She thought of the life she'd planned to have, the things she might now not get to see, such as her son growing up. When she thought of what Nerys had just said, she found she wasn't sure which option would be worse, Turink growing up with a mother who had committed suicide, or him growing up with parents disgraced by his father's race, and both of them probably struggling to live with everything that had happened.

Anger kicked in next. Jadzia wanted to go out and yell at everyone. Nerys, Worf, the Klingon who had refused to not kill him when anyone with either sense or decency would've backed down, and everyone else she could even partly blame. She even thought uncharitably of Odo, of how if he hadn't left the woman he'd supposedly loved so much and for so long, she might have avoided much of the downward spiral she'd gone down that had led them to this.

But then again, she found herself thinking, maybe she should be nicer to Odo. Because as she sat there, she came to realize that her next course of action had to be to disclose everything to someone, make a statement of truth they could attest to, and Odo was pretty much the only person she had for it.

So when she pulled herself up, her tears mostly dried, she went to comm him, to ask him to please come as quickly as possible.

Much to her relief, he answered only a couple of minutes later, saying he was on his way. But when Jadzia checked the chronometer, she discovered enough time had passed that Worf would soon be back as well.

And, unfortunately, it was her husband, rather than Odo, who walked in first. Somehow Jadzia found herself blurting out, "Nerys just said to me the two of you talked again."

"Jadzia," the warning tone in his voice was unmistakable, "I do not wish to further discuss this matter, and you ought not to waste your time when I will not change my mind."

She shouldn't have hoped for otherwise. But she still asked, "Just tell me what she said in response. I'm kind of worried she's mad at me, but she didn't give me anything to go on."

"She ought not to have become that foolish. And she said very little in response, at least then, though she did indicate she might soon send me a message."

Before Jadzia could even react to that, the doorchime sounded. "That's probably Odo," she said. "I just need to talk to him about something that came up in the lab today." She's in front of the door when it opens, and before he can speak she says, "Odo! So glad you got here so quickly. Let's talk about the readings off those weird quartz stones out here; I'm not sure the commander wants me talking about them around anyone else, even my husband."

When they were safely out in the corridor, he hissed at her, "And what if he happens to hear there aren't any 'weird quartz stones' on the Starbase?"

"He won't," she replied. "He rarely pays attention to what I'm doing in the lab if something hasn't given him a reason to. Do you have a communicator?"

"They gave me a handheld." He pulled it out of a side pocket. "Who do you want me to contact? I…I don't think I could do this with Nerys over a comm."

"Noone. I just want you to record this and be able to testify to its veracity later, if that becomes necessary."

"What? Commander, you…"

"Five years ago, when Worf and I escaped Dominion custody, he was asleep when we received a distress call from Yarmok III." She told the entire story, holding up a hand whenever a shocked-looking Odo tried to interrupt, finishing, "Since then, Worf has never had any idea that any of this has happened. I hearby make it my dying declaration that all I have just said is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge and memory, and that Mr. Odo, who is making this recording, can attribute that it is not in any way doctored." She then reached over and turned the communicator off.

"Your dying declaration?" Odo now sounded horrified.

"That makes it admissible in all Federation courts. I don't know about Klingon ones, but I don't think they'd be all that likely to outright charge Worf with anything; the biggest danger he'd be in legally would be a court-martial-and one look at this recording and they'd never go forward with it, what with all the other circumstances involved."

Odo just shook his head. "Jadzia, you don't intend to die, do you?!"

She has to explain this now, which she never thought she'd have to do, or maybe just really hoped. "Odo," she said, "Nerys knows what happened; I don't even know how she found out, but it doesn't really matter. And she's…" This is really going to break his heart. "The things she suffered while you were gone, the state it reduced her to…she is now threatening to make this public. In which case…" Here came the part she could only really half explain. "Worf would do something wonderful, and miraculous, and that I couldn't stand to live with him having done, because he would do it for me. I couldn't stand to live with it."

"And yet it's wonderful and miraculous?" Odo was just shaking his head.

Maybe she could've explained it if she'd had more time. But it was only so long before Worf would come out to check on them. Even now, she was trying to figure out what to say to him when they came back in.

After another moment, Odo said, "Listen, Jadzia, maybe it still doesn't have to come to that. I may know that Nerys went through a good deal, but I still can't believe she truly wants to do this to you, that she wouldn't maybe listen if I tried to talk to her. It's worth a shot, I think."

Normally Jadzia would've hesitated, would've not wanted to put Odo through that if he still wasn't ready. But at this point she was truly desperate. And anyway, it might ultimately be very good for them both to finally talk.

"All right," she said. "She's given me six hours before she contacts Worf."

As if this last utterance of his name had summoned him, the doors to their quarters slid back open, and her husband peered outside. Before he could ask, Jadzia quickly put her smile back on, saying, "Odo and I are just wrapping up the serious business for the day, and now if you want to have him over for dinner…" Probably he'd say no.

But to her surprise, he said, "Very well."

It was all right, she told herself. It would only be a couple of hours. After that he'd still have time.


End file.
